Prologue

I wrote the column below on Oct. 20, 2016. It appeared on zestoforange. It’s still here. It was obviously written out of frustration and anger and I’m reposting it here out of frustration and anger that, nearly 10 years later, there are people in this country who still think the Republican Party has any moral standing as a legitimate political party. Even after that craven display of cowardly behavior at the State of the Union. Despite the continued Epstein coverup. Trump is Trump. He’s always been the same. Republicans picked him. He has been the death of them. Millions of Americans voted for him simply because he represented one of our two major political parties. Others believed his lies. Many, sorry to say, agreed with his brand of bigotry. Then they did it again. Even after four years of chaos. Yet people still give Republicans a pass for making this vile, now demented, man their leader. He in turn remade them in his image. Finally, one of those shouting TV commentators actually said the other day that Republicans are letting Trump destroy our country. It started 10 years ago, people, when Trump destroyed them.

By Bob Gaydos

People walk past a mural on a restaurant wall depicting Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin greeting each other with a passionate kiss in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. PETRAS MALUKAS / AFP – Getty Images

That’s all. I’ve had it. I am through with writing about what a sick, repugnant human being Donald Trump is and then watching him reach a new low. Those who know about recovery from addiction, a subject on which I write regularly, say that every bottom has a trapdoor. Trump is living proof of that. Yet, with each new bottom, every poll seems to find 40 percent of those surveyed favoring him for president.

A few days ago, I thought maybe it would be a good idea to give people a reason to vote for Hillary Clinton, rather than against Trump. I stopped writing in mid-column because it seemed to be a waste of time. Who was I going to convince?

Here’s as far as I got …

There I was, having breakfast and rummaging around in my mind to find an angle for this presidential campaign other than don’t vote for Donald Trump because he’s an ignorant, racist, bigoted, misogynistic, cruel, vindictive, vile, narcissistic, xenophobic, quick-tempered, undisciplined, untrustworthy, uninformed, unspeakably crude sexual pervert and birther, who lies as naturally as he breathes.

Somehow, writing that message week after week (me and plenty of others) still hadn’t convinced a lot of people that the only vote that makes sense on Nov. 8 is one for Hillary Clinton. You don’t have to like her, folks, just know that that the future of this nation may well depend on voting for her.

Deaf ears. “Yeah, Trump may be all those things,” comes the unconvincing shrug, “but I can’t vote for her.” I have given up asking for reasons why. You know, reasons based on actual facts that would outweigh the choice at hand.

I set aside a newspaper article about how Trump had managed to actually make insulting comments about Clinton’s body as part of his defense against multiple charges that he is a sexual predator. Instead, I tried to focus on my egg white omelette (Swiss cheese and tomatoes). Then, as fate (or my excellent hearing) would have it, the angle was delivered to me from a nearby table. A reason to vote for Hillary … not that it was presented that way.

“DId you hear that Putin said if Clinton is elected, be prepared for war?”

The point the gentleman was making to his friend was that voting for Clinton would be dangerous because it could mean getting into a war with Russia. This was delivered in all seriousness because Vladimir Putin had said so and, as we know, he always speaks the truth and never has any nefarious plot in mind because that’s the way former heads of the KGB comport themselves when they get elected president of Russia.

The further point would be that voting for Trump would be smart because Putin says nice things about him. And Trump says he’d like to work with Putin.

So there you have it, America, the Republican candidate for president of the United States is now being touted as the better choice because the president of Russia doesn’t like the other candidate. Does this seem backwards to anyone else? When did being pals with Putin all of a sudden become more important than standing up to the Kremlin? When Trump launched his campaign based on lies and fear, that’s when.

Trump, of course, has said that he has met Putin. He has also said that he has not met Putin. You can be sure that Clinton and Putin know each other well. And he apparently does hate her guts. (I’m liking this reason for voting for her even more now.) That’s because, as secretary of state, she publicly called him out on stealing his election, something which Trump has accused Clinton of trying to do. She stood up to Putin. Meanwhile, Trump wants to do business with the man who grabbed Crimea from Ukraine and whose political opponents have a way of ending up dead.

It used to be that Republicans automatically voted for the candidate who was tough on Russia. They wanted someone the Kremlin would have to talk to and would do so with respect. Someone experienced in  diplomacy whose word could be counted on by friend and foe alike. That would be Hillary, not Donald. Donald, who doesn’t know Crimea from Korea, wants to sell out NATO and maybe get a hotel deal in the bargain. Putin has played him — and his followers — perfectly, from the hacked Clinton e-mails to the threat of war. Trump’s entire campaign is based on fear. That’s no way for America to negotiate with Putin, or any other world leader. …

***

I stopped there, wondering whether to go on. Then Trump said in the last debate that he wouldn’t necessarily accept the results of the election if he lost. That’s when I threw in the towel. For a man who has promoted violence at his rallies and some of whose supporters have openly espoused rebelling against any defeat, this is as unacceptable, unpatriotic, indefensible, possibly treasonous a statement as a candidate for president can make.

But that’s Trump — a new bottom every day. His fans cheered. I do not blame him for being who he is; I simply detest him. In truth, I’m sick of him. I do, however, blame the Republican Party for infecting American society (not just politics) with this utterly degrading election campaign. I mean every elected Republican official, from Speaker Paul Ryan to every governor, senator, congressperson, state legislator, county executive, county legislator, mayor, supervisor, councilman who has stood silently by and let Trump make a mockery of our democratic system and lay waste to any sense of decency or decorum in selection of the most powerful political leader on the planet.

A lot of these people went to Cleveland to vote for Trump. Then they stayed mute for months as he … okay, I said I’m not doing that anymore. The world knows what he has done. If you know all that and can still support him, words actually fail me. The same goes for those who say Hillary is just as bad. Not even close. You people need to get serious.

Republicans, Trump is not one of you. He is Trump. Period. You created him. Your hypocrisy and cowardice have emboldened him and his ilk. He has sullied us all. And he has destroyed you.

By Bob Gaydos

Democrats’ shopping list for coming elections. Unsolicited.

    Back two or three lifetimes ago, being between newspaper jobs and hobbling around downtown Annapolis on crutches as the result of a touch football accident, I spent some time answering phones and making phone calls for the Democratic Party. It was primary season and someone whose name I can’t recall thought it would be a good way to spend some time and use my journalist’s familiarity with politics. Drinking may have been involved.

     It was 1976. Joe Tydings, scion of a prominent Maryland family, was trying to get back to the Senate and Governor Moonbeam — Jerry Brown of California — was running for president. Or dating Linda Ronstadt. Or both.

   Tydings lost the primary to Rep. Paul Sarbanes, who went on to serve five terms. Brown carried Maryland, but lost nationally to a peanut farmer from Georgia. That farmer, Jimmy Carter, then beat the accidental president, Gerald Ford, in the general election, but later ran into Ronald Reagan and the Iran hostages crisis, serving only one term.

    I reminisce about this history and these less than happy days in reaction to a mailing from the Democratic National Committee (one of many I have received) asking me, as a Democrat, to fill out a survey to help them prepare an agenda to fight Donald Trump and the Republicans. 

   While it’s good to know that someone is thinking about these things, let me be clear: I am not now and have never been a member of the Democratic, or for that matter, Republican, Socialist, Liberal, Conservative, Libertarian or Communist Party. Being registered in a political party doesn’t mesh with writing about politics for newspapers. My time answering phones in Annapolis may have filled a void, but I never joined the party.

    So DNC, I won’t be returning the survey or making any donation. I get it that it takes a lot of money to run political campaigns, but I will limit my contribution to giving (since you asked) my two cents on what Democrats should do to rid this country of Trump and the brain dead Republican Party.

    In essence, all of the above on your survey. That is, virtually everything suggested makes sense to some extent. Except for one.

    Under ranking of priorities, one item states: “Persuading voters who did not vote for Democrats in 2022 and 2024.”

     Save your breath, folks. These people knew Trump-the-terrible from the first time, enjoyed the rewards of Joe Biden’s economic agenda and still didn’t vote for Democrats. Ten years and counting of Trump Republicanism.

   If they were alive and breathing in 2022 and 2024 and voted for the party of anything Trump says is Ok, they are either too dumb to figure it out or they agree with the feed-the-rich, starve the non-white, non-Christian agenda of the Republican Party.

    Look, there are MAGA Trumpers who don’t even care that their leader raped young girls with Jeffrey Epstein, stole money from a phony kids cancer charity, sexually asssulted a woman in a clothing store dressing room on Fifth Avenue, promised a wall to stop the flow of immigrants from Mexico but delivered roaming bands of violent, masked kidnappers instead, and pardoned all those who followed his direction and laid waste to the U.S. Capitol when he told them the 2020 election was stolen from him.

    I could go on, but you get the idea. If they didn’t see or care about the difference between Democrats and Republicans two years ago, they likely still feel the same today or they are too embarrassed to admit they were wrong. Too iffy.

    Better to “engage,” as you say, those who didn’t bother to vote in 2022 and 2024. The ones who say all politicians are the same, so they don’t pay attention to politics. Or vote. They may be sorry they ignored their privilege and their duty.

    If the cost of groceries today, disappearance of jobs, violent ICE raids locally, illegal destruction of the East Wing of the White House and the total humiliation of the U.S. on the international stage with a president who “ends” dozens of wars except for the real one in Ukraine (“Day One”, remember?), rambles incoherently, insults longtime allies and falls asleep at meetings don’t persuade them that not all politicians are the same, nothing probably will. But it’s definitely worth a shot.

    So, yes, by all means work to win back the Congress this year and the presidency in 2028. Talk about the Epstein files every day. Go to court. And talk about Republicans’ shameful duplicity and cowardice with regard to Trump at every level of government. Every day.

    An unknown peanut farmer from Georgia beat the guy who inherited the Watergate mess from Richard Nixon in 1976. That mess pales by comparison with the grift Trump has been performing on Americans for a decade. Clean it up, please.

   As a lifetime independent voter, that’s what I think you Democrats should do.

By Bob Gaydos

The New York Times played Trump‘s racist slur of the Obamas as the lead story on Page One.

    The racist-in-chief hit a new low, at least for me, last week when he posted a video clip on his social media site portraying President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. 

     I say “at least for me” because, even though using this imagery has long been considered to be crude, racist behavior for any average citizen and until now has been beyond belief that any American president would wade this deep into the sewer of the history of racism, no one is talking about it. Even though it was only last week.

     How low he has taken us.

     To be fair, in the crisis-a-day atmosphere of the Trump era, it can be difficult to maintain outrage. And the daily release of new names in the Epstein files with the continuing coverup by the White House is legitimate news  and worthy of its own outrage.

     And, The New York Times, rediscovering its role under the First Amendment, did give the racist post the appropriate position as lead story on page one the morning after.

     Still, the initial administration attempts to disavow and the even worse efforts to pass it off as a joke only served to make Trump‘s racism more difficult to ignore. From his long ago attacks on the Central Park Five to his history of demeaning comments about women of color and insulting remarks about non-white nations and American cities with large black populations, Donald Trump has displayed his racism, even eagerly it seems, at every opportunity. Sometimes, perhaps, just for the sake of it. 

   I am just angry and disgusted that he gets to do it while representing the United States of America to the rest of the world, demeaning the position and embarrassing the nation, and that so many Americans think it’s OK because (1) they agree with him, or (2) they  think, well, he’s always been that way.

   I’m sorry. It’s not OK. I just hope that, in the future, history lessons will include full, honest detail of this dark chapter in American history and that teachers will be allowed to teach it. 

    But if we ignore it now, I fear that’s exactly what will happen. So, please, don’t pass it off. Don’t let Trump’s racism get lost in the chaos. He eventually admitted he posted the slur of the Obamas. Fine. Then fight fire with fire. Call a racist a racist, habit or not, president or not. Let him know that it’s not in any way OK.

By Bob Gaydos

The defiling of The Kennedy Center.

    He slapped his stupid name on The Kennedy Center. The *@*%+#*ing Kennedy Center! Are you kidding me? The master of sloth, pride and lust had to remind us of his penchant for envy?

    Of course it’s illegal, but honestly, it’s obscene. The John F. Kennedy Center is not only a cultural landmark in Washington, D.C., it is a memorial to a slain president. Yet Trump slapped his name above Kennedy’s on the memorial to Kennedy, a president loved, admired and respected by millions of Americans, a true patron of the arts. And a war hero to boot.

   The new, handpicked-by-Trump board of directors supposedly voted unanimously to change the name of the center, apparently to reflect the tackiness and total lack of class he has brought to the institution. Having also named himself chairman of the board, he has transformed it from first-class to no class with the ease and skill of a onetime reality TV show host. 

    No, he’s no Jack Kennedy. Mr. Bone Spurs undoubtedly never saw the movie or read “PT 109,” a book about Kennedy’s military service in World War II. In fact, a lot of Americans today probably aren’t familiar with the story, so here’s Google AI’s summary:

    “PT-109 was an 80-foot Elco motor patrol torpedo boat famously commanded by Lieutenant John F. Kennedy (the future 35th U.S. President) during World War II. The vessel is best known for its sinking in the Solomon Islands on August 2, 1943, after being rammed by a Japanese destroyer.

• The Collision: While patrolling Blackett Strait at night, the radar-less PT-109 was struck and sliced in half by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri, which was traveling at high speed.
• Initial Loss: Two crewmen, Harold Marney and Andrew Jackson Kirksey, were killed instantly in the collision and explosion.
• Heroic Swim: Kennedy and the 10 remaining survivors clung to the floating bow for hours before swimming 3.5 miles to a small, uninhabited island (Plum Pudding Island). Kennedy famously towed a badly burned crewman, Patrick McMahon, by a life jacket strap clenched in his teeth.
• The Rescue: The crew survived for several days on various islets by eating coconuts. They were eventually discovered by two Solomon Islander scouts, Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, who were working with an Australian coastwatcher.
• The Coconut Message: Kennedy carved a distress message into a coconut shell, which the scouts delivered to the coastwatcher, leading to the crew’s rescue by other PT boats on August 8, 1943.”

— A life jacket strap clenched in his teeth.

— Navy and Marine Corps Medal.

— Purple Heart

— Pulitzer Prize for book, “Profiles in Courage”

— Youngest person elected president, at 43

As president:

— The goal of putting a man on the moon and returning him.

— The Peace Corps

— The Cuban Missile Crisis

— “Ich bin ein Berliner.”

   In his 1961 inaugural address, Kennedy, a cum laude graduate of Harvard University, famously said, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” 

The law creating the memorial, signed by Lyndon Johnson.

   Trump, whose words mostly serve as fodder for comedians, has been bleeding this country for every dollar he can get ever since he set foot in the Oval Office, both times. Putting his name on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is not only obscene and illegal, it is an affront to the office of president, an insult to Kennedy and his family and a sorrowful reminder to Americans (like me), who lived through the Kennedy years and in 1963 mourned his assassination, of the pitiful depths to which Trump has dragged this nation.

     When this chapter in our history is done (the sooner the better), Trump’s name must be ripped off the facade of the defiled memorial/culture center and that garish, golden ballroom, if it ever gets built, torn down. Day One.

     If you’re around, that’s what you can do for your country. 

James Garfield, lower left. Chester A. Arthur, upper right.
From a print by the Temple Publishing Company hanging on my wall.

By Bob Gaydos

“I’m not fit to be president!”

The declaration thundered off the TV screen.

“The beauty of America,” came the reply. Quietly, presciently, yet setting off all sorts of alarm bells in my head.

In that one brief exchange, the creators of the Netflix series “Death by Lightning” rocketed across a century and a half. Of course. The beauty of America. Anyone can be president. Well, unless of course, she is a woman.

In fact, the four-part series offers an enlightening and entertaining account of two men, each of whom had no plan, intention or desire to be president yet both wound up in the office within months of each other.

It took one man’s death for the other to get there, that man being James A. Garfield, one of America’s least-known presidents and, from what the creators of the series tell us, one who could have been one of the best. If not for Charles J. Guiteau, the disgruntled, office-seeking lunatic running around with a gun, and an incompetent White House physician who, in removing the bullet, created the infection which actually killed Garfield.

The other man is the one who cried out about being unfit to be president, Chester A. Arthur. He was right, but it didn’t matter that he was a drunk and a laughable symbol of the spoils system of politics in America. He was the vice president, the next in line.

“The beauty of America,” was summed up succinctly by Senator Roscoe Conkling, of New York, in the Netflix series. I don’t know if Conkling, kingmaker, powerbroker and bitter rival of Garfield, ever uttered those words, but the writer sure grasped the moment.

Arthur was on the ticket in 1880 because New York, Arthur’s home state, had all the people, power and money, while Garfield, a farmer, had the message people wanted to hear. He went to the nominating convention to put someone else’s name up for president and gave such a stirring speech — he was an abolitionist when Republicans were proud to be abolitionists — that he was nominated because nobody else could get enough votes. The political art of the deal in practice.

Arthur, who oversaw the port of New York, including how the money flowed through it, wound up on the ticket as vice president in exchange for New York support of Garfield. Politics impure and simple.

But Arthur’s saving grace, to my mind, was that, when the reality of the moment hit him, he was well aware he had no business being anywhere close to the Oval Office, much less being president. While politics might be fine in that he could get rich, have fun and have power over people through control of who got the jobs and money, when it came to the presidency, he was, he declared, “unfit,” a word that carries a ton of weight considering the prestige and power of the office.

Would that were the case today. Money still controls politics, even more so since the Supreme Court decided to allow corporations to donate as much as they want to candidates who will do their bidding. Citizens United. A terrible ruling

The “beauty” of America today is that anyone can still become president, provided he has enough money behind him. Fitness, as Donald Trump and the hollow shell of what is now the Republican Party have shown, is irrelevant.

Arthur overcame his debauchery enough so that he signed into law the Civil Service system to protect government employees from the spoils system of politics which brought him to the presidency. While not regarded as a great president, neither was he a disaster. In fact, he confounded his critics in his brief term with a remarkably adequate job. A man aware, at least, to be humbled by what fate had bestowed upon him.

And no, while glaringly unfit, Trump, supported by the super rich, is also not humbled by his position, but rather clearly, even proudly, unaware of how unfit he is, not merely for the presidency, but for any office of public trust. He has, accordingly, assembled a cabinet of unfit misfits, liars and cheats incapable of doing even a merely acceptable job: Hegseth, Bondi, Patel, Kennedy, Noem, Zeldin (New York’s sorry contribution to the group), Lutnick, Gabbard, McMahon, Bessent, et al. Even Marco Rubio, who once wanted to be president, has shown himself to be unfit in so many ways.

Chester A. Arthur, for all his faults, knew instinctively what many Americans have forgotten or chosen to ignore. It is an honor and a privilege to be the president of the United States of America. But, so long as money is the route to all power, the beauty of America will also be the curse of America. Yes, absolutely anybody can become president.     Unless she’s a woman.

***

Editors note: For the history buffs out there, to the left of Arthur in the print is Andrew Johnson, who also came to the presidency via assassination. That of Abraham Lincoln. To the right of Garfield in the print are Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland. This picture was published in the Baltimore News-American a long time ago.

By Bob Gaydos

Catherine Lucey and Donald Trump

You can tell a lot about people by the way they speak, their choice of words.

Donald Trump has told us he has “the best words”. He has also demonstrated on many occasions that he is willing to use a lot of them in succession to no meaningful message. This suggests, at least superficially, that he is superficial, pretending to be what he is not or, worse, that he is not pretending but really believes what he says about magnets and windmills and shopping at grocery stores.

But this week he gave us a look inside the real man with just four words:

— “Quiet Piggy!”

— “Things happen.”

They were uttered on two separate occasions, both times to female journalists with whom Trump was more than a bit annoyed. Each had dared to ask the important question of the moment, in public and in front of witnesses.

Trump can’t handle this approach. He either explodes, as in the first case, or he lies, as in the second. Both replies were pathetically inappropriate, infuriating and embarrassing for having been uttered by the person occupying the office of President of the United States.

But then, that’s what we’ve come to expect — and far too many still accept — from Trump.

The “Quiet Piggy!” insult was directed at Catherine Lucey of Bloomberg News last Friday aboard Air Force One. As part of a group of reporters, she was asking him why he had not yet released the Jeffrey Epstein files.

“Quiet!” Trump barked. “Quiet Piggy.”

Trump’s well-documented misogynist attitude towards women in a nutshell. If they’re too smart and not appropriately deferential, insult their appearance. He’s done it before. Pathetic.

Mary Bruce

The “Things happen” remark was his nonchalant dismissal of Mary Bruce of ABC News who was asking Mohammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, about the killing and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

Khashoggi had written articles critical of the ruling Saudi family and the CIA concluded that the prince now sitting next to Trump in the Oval Office had ordered the murder.

No matter to Trump, whose family has several financial deals in the works with the Saudis. He said the prince knew nothing about the killing and scolded the reporter for asking an embarrassing question of “our guest.“

“A lot of people didn’t like the gentleman that you’re talking about,” Trump said. “Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Things happen. Death by dismemberment. The body parts placed in acid. No biggie. A journalist working for an American newspaper. A murder condemned around the world as an attack on the free press. The CIA says the “friend“ sitting next to Trump gave the order. Trump blamed the victim and called the question “insubordinate,” as if the reporter worked for him. He also called her a terrible reporter working for a terrible company and wondered about lifting their license, which is par for the course.

It’s difficult to try to come up with new ways to describe what an insult Trump is to the presidency and what a stain he is leaving on the idea of American democracy. Forget American exceptionalism.

And yes, as an American and a journalist, I do take this personally. I have lived through the presidencies of FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama and Biden without ever feeling that any of them, faults though they may have had and policies with which I may have disagreed, had so little regard for what the office of president stands for to the average American. Even Nixon. He had the decency to resign.

Decency is not included in Trump‘s “best words” vocabulary.

Maybe the Epstein thing will finally get this little piggy. Hey, things happen.

By Bob Gaydos

“I don’t know.“

No, that wasn’t a multiple choice question that Donald Trump had just been asked by an ABC News reporter. He was asked if he thought it was his duty as president to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.

Pretty simple and straightforward, most Americans would think. Instead of giving us choice A (yes) or B (no), Trump gave us C (I don’t know).

He expanded: “I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are obviously going to follow what the Supreme Court said.”

Despite his sworn oath, it has become Trump’s standard answer to questions about following the law upholding the Constitution. Blame it on his lawyers. The only ones left who are going to represent him in court. They know the answer. They’re just not saying. Not if they want to keep their jobs. A Justice Department lawyer who goes into court and admits there is no constitutional basis for the argument he or she is making is volunteering for a pink slip.

But then, one can say they should’ve known better when they took the job to represent Trump in the first place. It’s not as if there’s no track record to check.

But honestly, “I don’t know” seems to be the mantra for Trump with regard to just about anything that comes up. He just doesn’t always say it out loud.

Like, I shouldn’t be so friendly with a Saudi prince who had a journalist who worked for an American newspaper killed and dismembered in the Saudi embassy in Turkey because he didn’t like what the reporter wrote. Who knew? Or, I shouldn’t speak highly of an “attractive” Syrian president who once delighted in killing American soldiers in Iraq as part of Al Qaeda. Or, I shouldn’t take $400 million gift airplanes from a Mideastern country that supports terrorists. Or, actually, I shouldn’t take gifts from anyone. Emoluments, y’know? Beautiful word.

Stuff like that. Someone should tell him if he really doesn’t know because it’s infuriating and, frankly, embarrassing to have someone holding the office of president to be so, umm, ill-informed.

On the other hand, there’s such a thing as knowing too much. Or rather, thinking you do.

Take the case of Bobby Junior, better known as RFK Jr., who is now in charge of the health needs, issues and concerns of every American, allegedly.

Kennedy clatters around the Health Department like a know-it-all who once had a worm in his brain. Like a guy who might pick up a dead bear cub off the road, stick it in his car trunk, drive to Central Park and dump it on a walking path. For kicks. That kind of health savant.

Kennedy “knows” that vaccines cause autism and has chosen to ignore the research that dismissed that theory. He wants a new study to figure out why there are so many new cases, aside from the fact that we know so much more about identifying the behavioral disorder today. Gotta be vaccines.

He also “knows” that vaccines do not protect against measles, even though the MMR vaccine has done an excellent job of that for decades. So he’s cut off a lot of congressionally approved spending for vaccines and is promoting  more “natural” protections. Meanwhile, measles cases are multiplying nationwide because some people are following his advice not to use the vaccine. Because he “knows,” right?

Oh, and the man who  took his grandchildren for a Mother’s Day dip in a D.C. watering hole condemned because of the presence of a whole lot of bacteria, including E. coli, now wants to eliminate fluoride in water supplies so that kids and adults can once again get lots of cavities.

I have a local rooting interest in this one. The study that established fluoride as a safe cavity preventive when used in tiny amounts was conducted in 1945 in Newburgh and Kingston, two Hudson River cities in New York. My stomping grounds.

Newburgh got the fluoride. Kids got fewer cavities and their parents got lower dental bills. Kingston was the control group. No fluoride. Kids there got the usual amount of cavities. Since that groundbreaking study 80 years ago, thousands of communities around the country, including New York City, have added EPA-prescribed small doses of fluoride to their water supply to help residents avoid dental problems. It’s worked.

But Kennedy, also a one-time Hudson River denizen, is a longtime opponent of fluoride. He says it is a dangerous chemical with potentially harmful effects (which no one denies, but in much higher doses) and shouldn’t be added to drinking water.

How does he know? Well, he doesn’t, really, but he’s ordered the CDC to stop recommending fluoride as a dental decay preventive and to conduct new studies on the subject. Because, what does science know?

By the way, Utah was the first state to follow Junior’s advice and ban fluoride in its drinking water, under a decree by Gov. Spencer Cox, who happens to be a Mormon. Cause and effect has not yet been determined.

By Bob Gaydos

Obsolete

   So this is a bit awkward.

     With all the mean, stupid, harmful, unconstitutional stuff being thrown at the wall each day by Trump, there is actually one, less outrageous proposal, with which I agree. Getting rid of the penny.

        Two weeks shy of 12 years ago, I wrote a column calling for exactly the same thing for exactly the same reason Trump gave — it costs more to mint pennies than they are actually worth. I said they were obsolete. I wrote: “It’s simple: The penny can’t buy anything today. It is a nuisance, forming colonies on dresser tops and deli counters. Merchants routinely round their prices to avoid it. And it costs 2.41 cents to mint every penny. That’s a hefty loss for a nation struggling with a debt ceiling.”

      The cost of a penny has since risen to 3.69 cents, according to the Mint, which issued three billion pennies last year for a loss of $85.3 million. The Mint also figures there were about 250 billion pennies in circulation last year. Well, many of those were still on dresser tops or in cups on deli counters. And merchants still look to round their prices (up) to avoid pennies.

      So, if Elon and Donald are serious about cutting federal spending, there’s an easy, if not spectacular way, to start. There would still be plenty of pennies in circulation for collectors and merchants could continue to round up for cash customers until the pennies disappear. That’s what Canada did 11 years ago.

      But, as typical with Trump, there’s a problem.

      He said he has ordered Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to stop producing new pennies to help reduce government spending. The problem is it doesn’t work that way. The president doesn’t control the minting of coins, Congress does. Sound familiar? This means Trump would have to actually work with both parties in Congress to get a bill to manage this relatively minor budget cut.

      Let me rephrase that. He’d have to order Republicans in Congress to make it happen and, while they have been obedient to their leader in terms of not criticizing his haphazard attempts at “budget cutting” or rejecting his Cabinet nominations, today’s Republican Party is skilled at killing Democrat-proposed bills, but has proven to be pathetic at actually passing meaningful legislation.

      That’s because, like the penny, it too is obsolete. I said so in the  same column relegating the penny to the history books. I wrote: “The Republican Party: Talk about obsolete. The 21st century version of the party of Lincoln has been hijacked by haters, nay-sayers, evangelists, wealthy bullies and Flat Earthers. Anything, anyone, any idea that does not fit their narrow view of life is automatically a threat and subject to loud assault, not debate. It has no interest in working with others to better life for all Americans. It has no interest, in fact, in working with anyone who disagrees with its views.”

     That was more than three years before Trump rode down that escalator and the party has become much worse with him as its leader-who-cannot-be-questioned. As a partner in a two-party system, the GOP has lost all credibility.

      I also wrote: “Few Republicans talk about changing the party’s stances on some issues, such as immigration, abortion or gay marriage. Those who do are subjected to attack, ridicule and phony allegations. In fact, facts have little currency in the current GOP. The best thing would be for the Republicans with a brain, a heart and a sense of obligation to actual governing to form a new party.”

      That option remains, but I don’t know if Liz Cheney wants the aggravation. She could try Trump’s approach — throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see if anything sticks. Or she could ask around quietly among possibly like-minded Republicans: Penny for your thoughts.

    Best hurry while they still remain. The pennies and the pols.

                                    ***

(Full disclosure: That column also called cursive writing obsolete and urged abandoning it. I have since retracted that position as premature and dumb.)

By Bob Gaydos

President Joe Biden, and son, Hunter.

  This week, in the category of “Wow, I didn’t see that coming,” we have President Joe Biden pardoning his son, Hunter.

  Way to go, Joe. Finally, a Democrat realized it was suicide to bring a knife to a gun fight.

    As has become predictable, Biden received all sorts of self-righteous criticism from some fellow Democrats and the so-called mainstream media for pardoning Hunter, after saying that he wouldn’t. Democrats are supposed to be better than that, goes the argument. What about all those things he said about Trump? It just legitimizes all Trump’s pardons, etcetera.

    Nonsense. 

    There’s not a father worth his salt in the world who would not, if he were also president of the most powerful country in the world, pardon his son while the opportunity still existed, especially considering the charges the son was convicted of and the extraordinary political and public pressure by Republicans over the years to harm the father by persecuting this son.

    Not pardoning Hunter would have been unforgivable.

     As the president said in announcing the pardon, “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

     Indeed.

     The criticism of Biden, especially from the media, but also from some members of his own party, rests largely on the foolish belief that, even though Republicans have refused to play by the so-called rules of bipartisan government since about the time Ronald Reagan was elected, Democrats are still supposed to be the good guys and take the high ground, do the right, moral thing.

    Look where that got them in 2016 and this year. Two well-qualified women candidates for president rejected by an electorate that preferred a lying racist, amoral buffoon. A buffoon, by the way, who is a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, twice-impeached, adulterous former president who went out of his way to do favors for family members and loyalists, be it pardons, lucrative financial deals or well-paid, low-expectation jobs.

     So spare me the breast-beating. And spare me the holier than thou “reporting” on the pardon. Most of the stories say Hunter Biden was convicted on a gun charge or a firearms charge or weapons charge and for tax evasion. He was actually  convicted of lying on a firearms application form about his drug addiction. He also pleaded guilty to failing to pay taxes that he later paid with penalties. Not uncommon occurrences and not a major threat to society. Also, obviously a result of his addiction to drugs and alcohol. Usually, these don’t wind up being felony charges. But when one political party has it in for the other political party, sometimes unusual things happen. 

    President Biden addressed his remarks to “reasonable“ persons. The few who existed in the Republican Party have left. The MAGA cultists who buy Trump’s game, hook, line and sinker don’t qualify. But I suspect that if some of those “just following the story” reporters would track down a few so-called “typical“ Trump voters who were upset about the price of eggs, a lot of them would say they were OK with a father pardoning his son.

   In this case an 82-year-old father with an extraordinary career of service to his country who has tragically lost another adult son to brain cancer and a young daughter and previous wife in an automobile accident.

      And maybe, if those reporters want to chase a presidential family story, they can ask the president-in-waiting what qualifies Charles Kushner, father-in-law of Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, for the position of ambassador to France.

    On his way out of the White House in 2020, Trump pardoned Kushner, who served two years for a variety of charges he pleaded guilty to, including tax evasion, illegal campaign donations and witness tampering.

     The witness tampering involved a scheme Kushner dreamed up to get even with his brother-in-law, who he found out was cooperating with the feds in an investigation.

       Kushner hired a woman to lure his brother-in-law to a motel room in New Jersey in which a hidden camera was installed and recorded everything that happened in the room. Kushner then sent the recording to his sister. This display of brotherly love apparently qualifies Kushner to handle America’s diplomatic relations with one of our key allies, France.

       Actually, with Trump, rather than not seeing it coming, one pretty much expects such news. And there’s the problem.

      Biden‘s got a little less than two months left in office. Can’t wait to see what other surprises he has in mind.

By Bob Gaydos

George W. Bush and Kamala Harris

   Some final thoughts while waiting for the results of an election, the likes of which I never expected or wanted to witness …

— Where’s W? Is George Bush so intimidated by the violent rhetoric spewing from Donald Trump’s mouth that he cannot bring himself to publicly denounce what has happened to the Republican Party that once once proudly nominated and then supported him and his father as each served as president? His own daughter is campaigning for Kamala Harris.

  George, your vice president’s daughter has had the courage of her convictions to denounce Trump for the horrible human being he is and the threat he poses to American democracy. That courage cost Liz Cheney her seat in Congress as Trump’s Republican Party refused to support her. 

     George, you’re 78 years old, same as Trump. You have your place in history. Time is not on your side. An act of statesmanship and patriotism would be a great  capper for your biography. Endorse Kamala Harris.

     …. Actually, that’s it. Everybody else vote for Kamala Harris. Your country as you know it depends upon it.